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What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky

‘Remarkable range and exquisite prose’ Ayobami Adebayo, Guardian Books of the YearA stunning collection of short stories from Caine-Prize shortlisted and Commonwealth Writer’s Prize winner Lesley Nneka Arimah, WHAT IT MEANS WHEN A MAN FALLS FROM THE SKY has been described as ‘luminous’ (Roxane Gay), ‘mesmeric’ (Claire Vaye Watkins) and ‘hilarious and heartbreaking’ (Rowan Hisayo Buchanan). Shot through with magic and a powerful sense of yearning, this is a diverse and dazzling collection that showcases the work of a major new talent at the beginning of a stellar literary career.‘When Enebeli Okwara sent his girl out in the world, he did not know what the world did to daughters’. The daughters, wives and mothers in Lesley Nneka Arimah’s remarkable debut collection find themselves in extraordinary situations: a woman whose mother’s ghost appears to have stepped out of a family snapshot, another who, exhausted by childlessness, resorts to fashioning a charmed infant out of human hair, a ‘grief worker’ with a miraculous ability to remove emotional pain – at a price. What unites them is the toughness of the world they inhabit, a world where the future is uncertain, opportunities are scant, and fortunes change quicker than the flick of a switch. Characterised by their vividness, immediacy and the author’s seemingly endless ability to conjure worlds at once familiar and unsettlingly different, this is a remarkable debut from a ‘master storyteller’ (Independent)

Reviews

In these gorgeous stories, Leslie Nneka Arimah dreams a world. These tales cut like razors, charm like poetry, and heal like love. International in scope, but deeply personal, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky marks the arrival of a stunning new voice

Tayari Jones, author of SILVER SPARROW

Dazzling collection of sly, subversive stories... brilliant

Daily Mail

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky is a striking collection that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand at attention and your heart gasp in admiration. Arimah's stories are intense, mesmeric, and nothing short of stunning

Claire Vaye Watkins, author of BATTLEBORN and GOLD FAME CITRUS

She is conducting adventures in narrative on her own terms, keeping her streak of light, that bright ember, burning fiercely undimmed

Marina Warner, New York Times Book Review

Though the stories are intense and unforgettable, they are offset by dazzling wit, playfulness, and imagination, making What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky a joy to read. Do not hesitate to pick up this collection

BuzzFeed

With her luminous debut collection, What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky, Lesley Nneka Arimah marks her richly deserved place in contemporary fiction. At the centre of each impeccably written story, Arimah offers up a new kind of yearning - for love, for peace, for comfort, for home. Never have needful things been so gorgeously displayed

Roxane Gay, author of DIFFICULT WOMEN

The hilarious and the heartbreaking stand shoulder to shoulder in What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky. Some stories are fantastical and others are grounded in the day to day, but each reveals something of what it means to be alive. Lesley Nneka Arimah describes the darkest corners of the human heart with such flourish that each story is a delight

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of HARMLESS LIKE YOU

Arimah has skill in abundance: the stories here are solid and impeccably crafted and strike at the heart of the most complicated of human relationships ... [This book] heralds a new voice with certain staying power

Kirkus Reviews, STARRED review

In this mesmerising and luminous collection, Arimah reimagines a world that is and imagines it as it could be, probing always at the heart of what it means to be human

Ayobami Adebayo, author of STAY WITH ME

Each of the tales here are tightly, complexly woven... And although so many of the characters we meet are stricken by some sort of grief - from death, displacement, disillusionment - there's no lack of emotional warmth, and even the occasional flash of dark humour. This is a collection which proves Arimah as a master storyteller

Independent

This is an extraordinary short story collection exploring pain, difficult lives and wanting things which remain out of reach.... shows that talented authors don't need hundreds of pages to create rich, deeply emotional, captivating stories.

Stylist

An impressive showcase of her talent ... Arimah's voice is vibrant and fresh, her topics equally timely and timeless ...This is a slim, rare volume that left me compelled to press it into the hands of friends, saying, 'You must read this'

Washington Post

[A] playful and adventurous new talent... here is a debut writer showing serious range... the collection offers a rare combination of daring and nuance